Spotify can now use Chromecast, with some caveats

Support for audio-only half of Google's new Chromecast lineup has for some reason been kept behind Spotify's paywall.

One of the biggest holdouts for Chromecast support — that'd be Spotify — can finally take advantage of Google's excellent streaming protocol. But it's not quite as simple as it could be (or should be, perhaps), as there are a few caveats to how things are going to work.

The updated application is available now through Google Play. Here's what you can expect, and we've confirmed what Spotify laid out in its announcement post late last month:

If you have a new Chromecast (as in the round one), everything will just work as you'd expect. Period.

If you have a first-generation Chromecast (the one that kind of looks like a key), the Spotify app won't see it. Spotify says a firmware update for the Chromecast should enable support at some point. Nexus Player and Shield Tablet aren't visible, either.

If you want to stream through the new Chromecast Audio — or through another Cast-enabled target like the LG Music Flow speaker — you'll need to spring for the $9.99-a-month Spotify Premium services. (Which also gets rid of the ads.)

That last point is sort of a weird one though — there's nothing to keep you from playing through a new Chromecast connected to a proper receiver and stereo system, as a lot of us will do. But let's not pretend that music licensing has ever made sense.

I think they limited it to paid memberships due to copy protection reasons.

Chromecast to the tv has HDCP copy protection.
It's not very complete protection by any means but it will prevent a casual user from recording the digital signal, analog is a different story of course that can be recorded going out of the receiver or tv but with re encoding their will be quality loss.

Chromecast audio will provide a digital optical output that can be recorded with no loss of quality.
I assume they figure if they are going to give access to that, they should at minimum have you as a paying customer.

Nice try, but as far as I can tell CC Audio doesn't have a digital out, only a 3.5mm analog line out. Also people fail to realize they can buy a $10 device that will extract hdmi-audio to both digital and analog (and seems to work fine on my OG CC without needing any display connected, so no hdcp issues... maybe that is why they don't support OG until a FW update is stricter with hdcp)

As stated below, it definitely does have optical.
I admit their are fairly easy workarounds to hdcp, I mentioned that in my post.
But to a bunch of people worried about licensing, it does technically support some copy protections on chromecast video but not on chromecast audio, regardless of the workarounds that exist. That is a distinct difference.
With chromecast audio you don't need a workaround

It makes *zero* sense, though. I mean, I understand the *premise* but I can just as easily record audio off the Chromecast that's plugged into my TV. There's an optical out to the receiver, which then has a completely analog (with no HDCP) line out that I can record off of. This is just near-sighted piracy-panic that solves *nothing*.

Nobody is recording off Spotify, anyway. If someone wants to pirate music, they're just going to download it P2P.

um nope, don't need a new chromecast, just a working brain, seeing as you can cast ANY audio through the cast screen feature. But I suppose a working brain is something most visitors of this web site will be lacking, judging by its content.

That defeats the purpose of being able to send the cast command and not have your phone do the "work" of fetching the data. Not to mention that screen-mirroring still tends to be a little janky, in my experience.

Why exactly is that? I'm on trial with both services.. Spotify seems to be a lot more popular (Social interaction), desktop client is nice and all. But Google plays a lot nicer in Google/Android ecosystem (e.g. with Smartwatch or Chromecast), I also noticed although both streams at 320kbps, Google Music delivers better quality.. weird.